Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (Dec. 26, 2014)

Old Waters of the Deep
More water than is contained in all of the world's rivers, wetlands and lakes combined has been found hiding many miles beneath the surface, and scientists say it's the oldest water on the planet.  A study presented at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco also revealed that the water is reacting with the Earth's crust to release hydrogen, a potential food source that could be supporting subsurface life forms never before seen by humans.  The planet's oldest water, collected 1.5 miles down a deep mine in Canada, has been estimated to be between 1 billion and 2.5 billion years old.  The researchers used data from 19 different mine sites to measure how much hydrogen was being produced and thereby estimate the volume of the deep water, University of Toronto geobiologist Barbara Sherwood Lollar says the hunt for life in the deep crust is now a priority.
Meteor 'Radar'
Scientists may have discovered a new and revolutionary method to provide Earth with advance warning of potenially dangerous space rocks that could take aim on our planet.  By carefully observing changes in streams of plasma from the sun or particles in the solar wind, new research suggests, it could be possible to identify small but threatening near-Earth objects like the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013.  The technique would rely on the magnetic field disturbances that occur in the solar wind when it interacts with positively charged particles left over from collisions of larger objects orbiting the sun.  UCLA researchers say existing spacecraft instruments could map these disturbances over long periods of time, revealing which objects pose the greatest threats to Earth.
Giraffe Decline
One of world's most iconic and beloved animals is rapidly disappearing from the plains and forests of Africa, according to a new warning by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation.  The charity says the population of wild giraffes has plummeted by more than 40 percent over the past 15 years, down from about 140,000 animals across Africa in 1999 to 80,000 today.  "It's a silent extinction," the group's director told ABC News.  Even though it is illegal to hunt giraffe, the animal's meat is highly prized for its sweet taste.  Animal rights groups say that on average, more than 100 wild giraffes are slaughtered each day.
Eruption
An eastern Indonesian volcano erupted without warning on Dec. 19, spewing columns of ash and flows of lava down its flanks.  The inital blast from Mount Gamalama, on Ternate Island in North Maluku province, caused nine hikers on the mountain to be injured as they scrambled to safety.  Thick ash from the eruption blanketed the main airport of the nearby provincial capital of Ternate, forcing all arrivals and departures to be canceled for days.
Earthquakes
A sharp temblor centered high in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal shook a wide area of that country and neighboring parts of India.  Residents across the Indian state of Bihar fled buildings in panic as the region shook for approximately five seconds.
*     Earth movements were also felt in the India-Myanmar border region, islands of Indonesia's Molucca Sea, northeastern New Zealand, Japan's eastern Hokkaido Island and the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
Storm Evacuation
A group of at least five golden-winged warblers "evacuated" nesting areas in eastern Tennessee about one or two days before last April's devastating tornado swarm swept across the region.  The weather was calm when the birds rushed southward toward the Gulf Coast, hundreds of miles away.  Writing in the journal Current Biology, researchers from several institutions say they made the discovery because a group of warblers had been tagged with "geolocators" long before the outbreak.  It's believed the birds were able to sense infrasound from the deep rumble that tornadoes were generating hundreds of miles away.  Such sounds are well below human hearing and were probably being produced by twisters tearing across states to the west a day or two before the avian evacuation.  The tags indicated that the warblers returned to their Cumberland Mountains breeding area soon after the tornadoes passed.
Toothy Attack
For the second holiday season in a row, swimmers trying to escape the mid-summer heat in northeastern Argentina have been bloodied in a string of attacks by a type of piranha.  The most savage of the 10 palometa attacks so far this month injured 23 people on a beach in Garupa, located on a tributary of the Parana River, about 450 miles north of Buenos Aires.  The ADN Sureste news agency reports the carnivorous fish apparently gnawed through a net erected to keep the beach safe from such attacks.  Last Christmas, about 60 people downstream in Rosario were bitten by palometas.